Getting Older

I recently had email contact with a woman who I met only once – and that was some 20 years ago. She is the best friend of someone I used to know and like, but who I haven’t seen for years because we don’t live near each other. In her email, the woman mentioned that she…

Life has a way of presenting us with decisions that test our strength and resolve. Recently, I faced one of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make: moving my 90-year-old mum into a care home. This was not a decision made lightly, nor one that has come without a significant emotional toll…

Aging? Anti-aging? What’s your vocabulary, and what does it say about growing older? To me, the word aging suggests we’re going in the wrong direction, and anti-aging suggests we’re fighting against it tooth and nail. Neither feels quite right to me…

A friend who is 10 years younger than me and I have a running joke. Her mother sometimes disapproves of our joint outdoor adventures, so she will frequently say, “Mary Lou is old enough to know better,” all in a joking way. Recently, I arrived at a rural venue…

Once we pass 45 or 50, it often feels like the beginning of a slippery slope towards decline. Birthday cards telegraph that the best part of life is behind you. Anti-aging products are targeted at you. Articles point out how out of touch you’ve become…

It is time to prepare for this year’s Ageism Awareness Day on October 9th. Words are one of the most powerful forces in shaping how our society thinks of aging and older adults. So, let’s explore the words that we use and that you use to label our stage of life…

For years, I have written reminder notes for myself. My visual memory (the ability to recall what my eyes have seen) has always been particularly strong, but I’ve relied on this trait more in my 60s and 70s. Whether it is because I underwent chemotherapy…

I began writing this article several times. The topic: aging. What to say: a lot, not much… not sure? Finally, I turned to some women from my personal circles, all of them between the ages of 50 and 75. I caught them a bit by surprise when I broached the subject…

I can’t change a tire, so when I woke up one morning with one around my waist, I knew I was in big trouble. “What the hell?” I thought as I tried to button my jeans, and in doing so, created a muffin top. This was not here yesterday; I swear. As I looked in the mirror, it seemed I had gone…

We were hiking up a hill in my neighborhood after dinner. Night had fallen, but porchlights on nearby houses and a lone streetlamp lit the way. Michael, my son, said, “You know, Mom, you shouldn’t be doing this…